


House of Hunger.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Gen, Humour, Neil gets his own back, rick and vyv anxt, typical young ones madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 10:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8009776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neil gets his own back on  his  flat mates and teaches them to appreicate what they've got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Hunger.

House of Hunger.

By Tay Bartlett.

 

Neil woke up  before his alarm on the day and lifted his  head from the pillow,   a smile spreading across his face. That was most unlike him.

 In one fluid movement, Neil pushed the quilt off  his bed and rose to dress. He picked out his finest clothes and carried them through to the bathroom to shower. Normally he, like his house mates, allowed his body to go for days, even weeks without a shower. But today was an important day. He wanted to both look and feel good on this day. He hadn’t left the house for weeks but now he was escaping. He was off into the country to see what remained of his family while proving himself  to the other three at the same time.

He had planned this day for weeks, even going so far as to ensure that they were down to their last quarter in a kilogram bag of lentils. They were low on cereal. The kettle was empty. This day was going to be fun.  Neil wished dearly that he could be in two places at once, for then he could watch the events unfolding. However he would have to settle for pure smugness, safe  in the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to. The events that were sure to unfold were more or less self assured.

Ten minutes later, Neil walked out of the shower, his hair and his clothes clean.  He even allowed himself a  few moments to stare into the very dirty and cracked mirror that  was  dangling dangerously  off the wall above the sink. Even through   the ecosystem of filth he could see that he did indeed look good, better than he had in ages  and he smiled again at his   distorted reflection.

Neil glanced across at the  wall clock and struggled to make out the time beneath the layers of grime that covered its face. The  time looked to be half seven, hours before anyone else would wake. He had no more to do here. He could leave now and begin his journey across the   countryside and bask in the  glory.

He walked out of the door, closing it as quietly as he could behind him as he went. The cool early morning air fluttered across Neil’s face, bringing forth another smile. He wandered up the road towards the bus stop. He would be back. At the end of the day, Neil would be back to reap the rewards   for his escape.

The regular early afternoon chorus. As the sun  shone down from the  blue sky, the sounds of that early afternoon chorus echoed  through the student flat. If one had been standing outside the house at this moment, one would have heard three separate voices. One of these voices was singing the  always popular song, “Land of  Hope and Glory.”  Another was proudly proclaiming his good looks and all round fabulousness through the building for everyone to hear, and the third was shouting  obscenities at the top of his lungs. Not the nicest of  dawn choruses but you can’t have everything can you.

“Neil!” Vyvyan  bawled from the top of the stairs, his loud and aggressive voice ringing through the flat, “where the bloody hell are you, you stupid bloody hippy? I’m hungry.”

No reply reached Vyvyan as he stood outside his bedroom, his  spikey orange hair gleaming in the sunlight. He was growing angry at  the lack of any   response. Everyone in the flat knew that it was Neil’s job to make the morning tea and cook the first meal of the day.  But he was being a lazy bastard as usual, prolonging the moment when he would  have to get up and start doing something.

Rick tramped past him, voice loud and clear as  he stomped to his bedroom. “Land of Hope and Glory,” he sang tunelessly. He paused at his bedroom door, unable for the moment to remember the words. “Something something else,” he sang lamely after a few precious seconds of silence.

Vyvyan turned round and  glared at Rick. “Shut up you girl!” he yelled. Then a thought struck him. “You seen the hippy?”

Rick shook his head. “No,” he said, pausing on the threshold of his bedroom. “Funny thing though,” he added as an  afterthought, “someone did use the shower this morning. Condensation all up the walls and everything so maybe  he went for a shower and went back to bed.”

Vyvyan decided to check and walked down the hallway towards Neil’s bedroom. He threw the door open with no concern for Neil’s privacy and stormed into the bedroom. “Oy! Hippy!” he yelled without looking round, “get your  lazy arse out of bed.” 

No sound. Vyvyan took the time to look around the bedroom and his eyes fell instantly upon the bed. The bed covers were pushed back and no form of Neil could be seen  lying beneath them. In that moment, standing in the doorway of the useless bastard’s bedroom, Vyvyan felt an uncharacteristic twinge of nervousness. Oh don’t get me wrong now, Vyvyan was in no way concerned about Neil. He was in fact  growing very worried about the lack of any food giver being present.  

Vyvyan marched out of the hippy’s room again, slamming the door behind him in rage. “Bloody grate,” he bellowed, “bloody brilliant.”

Rick came out of his room, locking the door behind him. “What’s up now?” he asked in concern, looking at the beetroot purple face of his  flatmate.

Vyvyan ignored Rick’s question and pelted down the stairs into the kitchen. It was dishearteningly devoid of food. The immense bag of  lentils that sat next to the fridge was almost empty. Walking across to the kettle, Vyvyan  noticed with horror that the thing was bone dry. How the hell did you make it work? Did you put water into it and allow it to boil? Or did you put the water in and let it pour out  the cups on its own? In Vyvyan’s  experience, he just yelled at Neil to make him a cup of tea and a steaming mug of it appeared before him  minutes later.

Picking up the impossibly light kettle, Vyvyan took it  across to the sink, filling it slowly, wondering how this could ever work. He placed the now full kettle down and wondered what the hell he should do next. He stood for a few moments, staring at it in complete confusion.

“What are you doing?” asked a cocky voice from the doorway. Rick had followed him downstairs and was now  staring at his flatmate who was still  trying to work out how the bloody thing  operated.

“How do you work this?” Vyvyan asked, pummelling the cold  surface of the kettle with his fist.

Rick walked over and set the kettle to boil, looking at Vyvyan with  eyes sparkling with condescending laughter. “Like that,” he said, voice sagging with sarcasm. “Where’s Neil? He usually does this stuff doesn’t he?”

Vyvyan nodded, eyes still focused on the kettle. God this was taking ages. “I know that!” he retorted sulkily, “but Neil aint here is he? So  we’re going to have to make our own bloody tea.”

Rick’s face changed from one of smugness to one  of puzzlement. “Where is he then?”

“How the  bleedin hell do I know?” Vyvyan asked. He slammed his hand against the kettle once more, regretting it instantly as it  burned his hand.   Oh Christ. He hadn’t expected the kettle to be hot.

He gave up on the making of tea as a bad job and stormed into the living room. It was an unholy mess. Debris from the night  before covered the coffee table and littered the floor. Neil hadn’t even  had the decency to clean up before he buggered off to who knew where.  Ignoring the litter, Vyvyan plonked his arse down onto the sofa and picked up the remote. Turning on the  TV was one thing that he could do, and do well.

Rick entered, two steaming mugs of tea in his hand. He held one out to Vyvyan who  took it in puzzlement. How had he done that?

“A thank you would be nice,” Rick muttered, sounding rather like Neil as he did so.

Vyvyan ignored him, drinking the tea down in one gulp. He looked at Rick. “This tea was shit,” he told him ungraciously. 

Rick scowled. “Well thank you very   much,” he said unhappily, “that’s the last time I make tea for you.”  He tried his hardest not to look offended by Vyvyan’s comment but it was difficult for him. Rick  rarely did anything about the house and  everyone knew it. Now he had done a nice thing for his flatmate and it had been thrown back in his face. The throwing back of this  generosity in his face  became more literal a second later, as Vyvyan threw the empty mug  at him. 

“Oh bugger this!” Vyvyan yelled, standing up and once again heading for the kitchen, “I’m off to make the breakfast.” 

He stood beside the fridge, looking perplexed at the  almost empty bag of lentils. He had no idea what to do with this. Neil had always done many and varied things with lentils. He could make  lentil casserole ,  lentil soup,  lentil pie and  of course, lentil surprise.  Vyvyan had absolutely  no idea what to do with any of them.

He crossed to the  cupboard and pulled out a  bowl. It was clean as it always was. Neil was always very good at keeping everything spotless in the kitchen. Taking the bowl back to the side and laying it upon the worktop, Vyvyan dipped a table spoon into the bag and began heaping  lentils into it.   It was a long and arduous process, not his  style at all. So, he  abandoned this gentle method, lifted up the bag and poured   the lentils into the bowl, Vyvyan style.

There was one major  problem though. The bowl had already been half full of the stuff and so it quickly overflowed. In a matter of seconds,  lentils spilled over the rim of the bowl, pooling on the floor  and collecting in   heaps. An angry Vyvyan slammed the bag of lentles down upon the worktop once more and picked up the bowl instead. This was useless. Completely bloody useless.    Vyvyan threw this bowl, complete with contents across the kitchen, pleased at the shattering sound it made  as it smashed against the far wall. He couldn’t make breakfast.

As Vyvyan stormed back through to Rick, who was at this moment kneeling upon the living room carpet, sweeping the shattered remnants of the teacup into a plastic bag, he  slumped on the sofa once more. “Well, that’s no bloody good,” Vyvyan mumbled, switching channels in the vein hope of finding something half decent to  watch.

Rick looked up. “What do  you mean?” he asked, disregarding the furious look on Vyvyan’s face.

Vyvyan lost his temper once again and threw the remote control at Rick, regretting this action to   because now he couldn’t change the channel. Cartoon images of  some  kid’s show were bouncing across the screen, smiling in a fashion that made Vyvyan want to be sick.

Rick stood up, handing the remote back to Vyvyan. “How’s breakfast coming along?” he asked joyfully,  only enraging Vyvyan further.

“I can’t make it,” Vyvyan sulked, head in hands now, the studs imbedded in his forehead glittering in the light of the sun streaming through the living room window.  He sighed heavily. “We’re just going to have to wait for Neil to come back.” 

Rick nodded, not troubled  much by this. “Fare enough,” he replied bracingly, “I’m sure that he’ll be back soon. He’s most likely out shopping or something.”

But the time ticked on. Vyvyan and Rick sat on the dilapidated sofa,  watching  endless reruns of  The Bastard Squad and not saying one word to each other.  Every now and again, at increasing intervals, one of them  looked at the tiny clock on the living room wall. Bubbles of hunger and hopelessness were slowly expanding in Vyvyan’s chest as he watched the police fighting gangs of armed thugs who were raiding a shopping centre. He was becoming hungrier and hungrier by the hour.

Half past twelve. Rick began to  chatter inanely, like a budgie who has grown bored with his lot in life. Vyvyan gritted his  teeth and kept uncharacteristically  silent.

Half past one.  Mike appeared in the room, sat down  and  looked sullenly out of the window, ignoring both Vyvyan and Rick who similarly ignored him.  The tv show had switched to  Prime Minister’s question time, which seemed to take Rick’s mind off food for a while.

Three o’clock. The tempers among the three remaining house mates were  fraying. Rick was clicking his fingers in an  irritating fashion and driving Vyvyan up the wall. Vyvyan tried to silence Rick by punching him on the arm, then on the leg, then in the side of his head. None of these increasingly  violent methods  were working. In the end he gave up and took up shouting at Rick instead.

Half past five. Now, though none of them would ever be willing to  admit it, Mike, Rick and even Vyvyan were becoming worried about Neil the person.  He hadn’t been out of the house for this long before to any of their knowledge.  Where had he gone? Was he in danger? Had he run away?  Was he in fact  wandering the city in search of  somewhere else to live? And  why the hell had he left them here with no food?

“I give up,” Rick said finally, reaching for the phone, “how’s about I phone for a pizza?”

Vyvyan nodded. “I’ll have double    pepperoni and    Worcestershire sauce.”

Rick looked at Vyvyan. Good lord, his flat mate  really  was disgusting.  Who in the name of the lord would ever want to have  Worcestershire sauce on a pizza that was already covered with pepperoni? No matter. He   typed in the number and placed the phone to his ear.

A resounding crash emmonating from the hall. The back door swung open and in came Neil, face alight with happiness, happiness that nobody else among the gathering had ever seen. He strolled through to the living room, taking off his coat and flinging it down upon the chair next to the sofa. He stood and looked at the rest of  his flat mates, all of them wearing similar expressions of surprise and total incredulity.

Vyvyan, as ever, spoke up first.  “Where the bloody hell have you been?” he asked loudly, not giving the food giving member of the flat time to speak. “We’ve  been sitting here since half past  bloody ten waiting for you.  We haven’t  had any food all day.”

Neil only smiled. So,  he had proved  something after all. Now it was time to hammer his point home. “I went to see my grandparents,” he announced to the room in general as he  threw  himself down into the chair, “I didn’t think you’d miss me that much.” He swallowed another smug grin and looked at the tv instead. “I thought you would have been able to make your own food.”

Rick snorted with sarcastic laughter. “You know that we can’t do that Neil,” he admonished the hippy in a voice that was not quite angry, “you know how useless Vyvyan is. He didn’t even know how to use the kettle.” His cheek earned Rick another absentminded punch to the side of his head from the punk, but Rick ignored it. He mearly stared incredulously at Neil. “Don’t ever do that to us again.”

Vyvyan sat there, unable to say the same. It was true. He had been worried about Neil’s absence but he was unable to  say any of this. He could however nod and say, “yeah, what he said. Ow go and make some dinner you hippy freak.”

Neil was triumphant enough to  let Vyvyan’s latest insult fly over his head.  He got up, smiling blandly at the three of them before walking out of the room.

 He stepped through to the kitchen,  noting the appalling mess that lay over everything with smug satisfaction. He bent to clean up the spilled lentils, now able to release his childish grin. He had been on their minds all day. They had  in fact needed him. As  the time had ticked onward, each had become aware of the fact that he, Neil,  was a  valuable member of the flat. They hadn’t even been able to make tea without his help. If he had been absent for a longer amount of time, maybe they would have starved.

Ten minutes later, Neil appeared in the living room, holding four bowls of a delicious looking lentle cacerole. He handed a bowl to Rick, Mike and Vyvyan, sitting down with his own in the chair.  Neil waited a moment before eating his own. He was perfectly happy to sit and watch while his flat mates wolfed theirs down as if they had never seen food before. The delight on their faces was  priceless.

“Thanks  Neil,” Vyvyan  said, the relief at finally having food  causing him to go slightly soft. He even went as far as to smile at Neil, and Vyvyan almost never smiled. 

Rick nodded with obvious sincerity. “Yeah, thanks Neil,” He agreed fervently, “that was bloody brilliant.”

Neil looked up, spoon in hand and  smiled  around at the others. “Wow,” he  noted out loud, “you’ve all changed your  tunes haven’t you.  I go away for one day and you  finally realise that I am a valuble member of the flat. Feeling  guilty now are you?”  He paused there, knowing that they were probably not feeling guilty. They were listening however. He plunged on. “So, you couldn’t even make your own food? You really did need me didn’t you?” He got up, collecting all of the  dirty plates, preparing to take them back to the  kitchen to begin the task of washing up.

Before he left ther room, Neil made  one last smug announcement. “I’m glad you enjoyed your food,” he told the three students sitting before him, “and I’d just like to say one thing. I’d just like to say that the morril of this story is, appreciate what you’ve got, because basicly, I’m fantastic.” 

And he bounsed out of the room, knowing that things were very likely going to change around here.


End file.
